Surviors

I love airports.

Which sounds weird due to how nervous I was the day before my flight. After listening to my mom’s unending stream of nerve-racking questions (such as “Did you bring the right passport?” and “Are you sure you’re leaving today?”) I arrived at the airport in a state of extreme agitation. But once I checked in my bag, got through security without a hitch and arrived at my boarding gate with a little less than an hour to spare, I found myself thoroughly enjoying waiting for my flight in solitude. I alternated between reading snippets of The Plague and people watching, making up brief stories about the people I observed—why the lady in the white dress stopped her brisk walk on the walkway so abruptly and dashed in the other direction as soon as she got off, what competition the guy sitting across from me was participating in and how successful he would end up….

The flight to Atlanta went smoothly, even I couldn't botch a flight that short. Atlanta, however, was on the the other end of the spectrum when it comes to 'smooth flights.' I headed to my next terminal immediately once I got off the plane. After exchanging weary nods at one another, Ryan informed me right off the bat that he wanted to get his shoes shined. I agreed to accompany him as w still had some time to kill. We went up several flights of escalators when all of the sudden, we found ourselves at the arrival gate. “Not a big deal,” I thought to myself. “We have plenty of time to make it through security again and back to our terminal.” Ryan, however, was less calm.

“I left my boarding pass with Katie…” he said, half in disbelief, half in panic. After we were severely rebuked by the airport official for our carelessness, he attempted to re-check-in with little success. As he figured out his boarding pass problem, I went and got shoes shined for the first time. I felt quite classy, sitting up in that chair; all I was missing was a tweed suit and a fedora. Luckily, Ryan got everything sorted out and we had enough time to go through security once again before meeting up with the others again, me setting off the alarm and all (It's been quite an exciting first day).

It was a slightly ridiculous flight—I was comfortable yet not sleepy, the food was ‘vegetarian’ but also worse for you than the hormone filled meat we normally eat (what does it mean when you get a chocolate brownie that contains less than 2% of chocolate?) But we made it! We (6 people with 50 pounds of luggage each, then an additional 6 halfway through the commute)navigated the airport, the train station and the bus system and, despite being laughed at by quite a number of well dressed (and possibly good looking, I don’t remember the faces as much) male students when we got lost on the ULB campus, we eventually found our way to Zierler.

I’ve only been in Brussels for a day and it feels like forever already. After our orientation, I spent most of the day exploring our section of the city with Kristen, both by foot and by bus. While I still don’t know street names and find myself getting odd looks whenever I open my mouth in public, I would say I am fairly familiar with the area now. I know where I can find good bakeries, cheap sandwiches and Laundromats within a five minute walking distance. And I had my first encounter with pommes frites—quite delicious and oily, even if the line was ridiculously long. We got it with aioli instead of the traditional plain mayonnaise, but I’m sure I’ll be back around Flagey soon enough. Brussels is an odd city, both ugly and beautiful. The pieces by themselves, whether it’s a railing on a balcony or a dilapidated, abandoned garage, don’t look nice; but put together, layered on top of one another or paired unexpectedly with a corner marketplace, looks beautiful. Lots of pictures taken with the toy camera so far and some with the digital—fingers crossed that the pictures on the toy camera will actually turn out!

Think I beat jet lag—it’s 11 PM local time and I’m finally going to bed after not sleeping for… too long. I can’t bother myself with trying to figure out just how many hours with time zone changes.